The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

  A cultured Polish friend posted this clip on Facebook today to explain Britain's odd attitude to the European Union. It's only funny because it contains a grain of truth. "Divide and rule" is comic overstatement however. Unlike France, Germany, Russia and even Poland (in the days of the Polish-Lithuanian Empire) our hands are clean…

EU referendum: Who in Britain wants to leave, and who wants to remain? I tire of the Remain campaign's "it's their future" meme, which suggests that older people should vote according to the majority pro-EU views of the young. It's insulting to older voters who know they would live through the short-term disruption that…

Perhaps it’s too soon to be worrying about the aftermath of the EU referendum. Magnanimity in victory is all very well, but let’s have victory first. Or failing that, let’s not be good losers until we have actually lost. There is going to be a price to pay regardless of…

Just Say No: The Spectator On The 1975 Referendum eBook: The Spectator, Toby Young, Constance Watson: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store. The Spectator has published a cheap E-book collecting its best pieces from the 1975 referendum debate. It's an interesting read. My recollection was that the "Common Market" was sold solely as…

My father and I were reminiscing today about the 1975 referendum on Britain's continued membership of  "the Common Market." We both voted then to Remain. We are both voting this time to Leave. I reminded him that he had said to me at the time, "I am on the other side…

Mark Wadsworth: Peter Lilley debunks “free trade deals”. Governments don’t trade goods and services. Companies and individuals do and governments get – more or less, according to how economically idiotic they are – in the way. Most “trade deals” are to remove tariffs created by governments in the first place.…

Many Americans instinctively favour the European Union because it resembles – from a distance – the USA itself. It’s not surprising that the citizens of a successful federal superstate favour the countries their ancestors fled seemingly copying the model they adopted in the New World. The idea that Britain might leave the…